


To Hold or to Break

by significantowl



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Claire has Matt's Number, F/M, Gags, Lowkey D/s, Matt Kinda Likes it that Way, Post-Season/Series 02, Power Dynamics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-30
Updated: 2016-09-30
Packaged: 2018-08-18 14:45:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8165591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/significantowl/pseuds/significantowl
Summary: Been a while since Matt heard a knock at his door; been even longer since he answered one. But Claire’s heartbeat and her breath drew him over, a compass needle to a pole, and the rock-steadiness with which she stood made the rest easy. A choice taken out of his hands.(for the "gags" square on my Daredevil Bingo card)





	

**Author's Note:**

> All the thanks and hearts to Elliceluella and Capriccio! ♥♥

“Heard a blind lawyer got jumped near the courthouse the other day,” Claire says as soon as he opens the door. No preamble, not even a hello. “Broad daylight. Heard he got a few lucky shots in, enough to drag the fight out until the cops showed up.” 

“Eh, people talk a lot in New York.” Matt steps back to let Claire into his apartment. Been a while since he’d heard a knock at his door; been even longer since he’d answered one. But Claire’s heartbeat and her breath had drawn him over, a compass needle to a pole, and the rock-steadiness with which she stood - feet planted, no fidgeting or shifting of weight, no signs of turning away - made the rest easy. A choice taken out of his hands.

“Yeah. Sounds like the guy was wanted on several counts of trafficking, pretty slippery customer. Bet the cops were thrilled he decided to take up mugging people in a highly-patrolled area in the middle of the afternoon. That the worst of it?” She's gesturing at the butterfly bandage over his left eyebrow, the bruise ringing the socket.

“The worst is probably that blind lawyer’s ego,” Matt says, “but he’ll live.”

She's about to reach for him, he knows: check over his shoulders and back, torso and chest. Matt takes a step back. He loves her touch, but he doesn't need it. He doesn't _need_ it.

“Ah, I was about to make tea,” he says, while Claire's fingers flex emptily at her sides. “Want some?”

There's a pause. “Sure,” Claire says. He's fairly certain she's rolling her eyes. “Why not. It's wet out there tonight.”

It is, the rain a steady drumbeat on the roof and the street below. As steady as the eyes on his back - Matt knows they're on him, that she's watching his gait as he walks to the kitchen, and the fluidity of his movements as he reaches into the cabinets.

He's careful. There's little to see.

Heat the water, set out mugs. Bring out choices: green, jasmine, oolong. Sugar, honey. _She came out in the rain for you_ is a prickly thought, one that won't be pushed away; it settles uncomfortably between his shoulder blades. 

Matt pours water over the tea she chooses: jasmine. Leaves unfurl inside the sachet, whispering against one another as they bloom in the water; a light floral sweetness rises into the air. 

It feels fragile, this moment, something to hold or something to break. They never spend time together like this: not fixing his broken body or the problems of the city, not righting wrongs, not fighting the dark. Just being. Breathing.

Matt says, “I heard a nurse lost her job for helping patients off the books. Claire. I’m sorry.”

“You heard wrong,” she says sharply. “I _quit_ because I was tired of seeing things get buried. Tired of dollar signs mattering more than lives.”

“Claire….”

Something dark churns in the pit of his stomach. He loves this too, the fire that burns right down at the heart of Claire, an unwavering flame bright with the determination to see the right thing done and the drive to _help_. But no. No.

Her career, her life, her boundaries… she has to protect them just as fiercely as she does the people who need her. She _has_ to. If he chooses to hack through the ropes of his own anchor, that's one thing, but he can't be any part of the unravelling of hers.

“ _You're_ not going to tell me it was wrong to take a stand.” Claire leans back against the counter and takes a sip of her tea. She's daring him to try her.

Surely she knows he will?

“If you're looking for someone to tell you that you did the right thing, you knocked on the wrong door.”

“Oh, that's good. That's good.” She laughs. “No, believe me, if I were looking for validation, you’d be the last person I'd come to.”

Her heart says it’s more complicated than that. She might wish she didn’t want it, she might hate that she needed it, but that didn’t mean it wouldn’t strike some chord deep within her to hear it. Matt certainly knows that.

_(Done with that law partner of yours? Good for you, Matty. Now we can really get out there and kick some ass.)_

“There’s a stand and there’s stupidity. I thought you knew the difference.”

“Funny, I’m pretty sure you don’t.”

When Claire brushes past him out of the kitchen, Matt doesn't bother following. After all, she knows the way to the door. But her footsteps turn towards the couch instead, and he tries to hide his surprise. Fails, if the peal of laughter that rings out is any indication. 

“Thought you'd done it, didn't you? Pressed enough buttons to send me out the door. Sorry, Matt. I know how you operate. I walk when I want to walk.”

He works his jaw. “Yeah. Well. You're usually better at it than this.”

She points at him, finger jabbing the air. But there's a playfulness in it that surprises him, and in her voice, too, when she says, “Watch it.”

“Might be tough,” Matt says. He's smiling. Can't help it. “I’ll do my best.” 

Claire hasn’t absolved his guilt or his worry, and she hasn’t made her life any safer. But she's made it so simple to walk over and sit down next to her on the couch. To angle his body towards her and drink in the warmth she brings to his world. 

This moment feels less fragile and every bit as precious, like a gift no one will let Matt return. Claire’s heartbeat sings to him, closer and sweeter than the rain, and he shifts a little closer on the couch, propping his arm on the back. When she sips her tea, he follows suit, deep, tannic flavor dancing over his tongue, chased by sweetness from the few drops of honey he’d added.

“So, besides your trafficker friend down at the courthouse, punch anyone interesting lately?” 

“Ah, well, you know. Every piece of shit thinks he’s interesting.”

“Jesus, don't I. Not sure how much they talk when you're,” she gestures with her mug, “doing what you do, but some punks just can't shut up when they're getting stitched back together.”

“I could start breaking more jaws, but face hits are pretty rough on the hands?”

She snorts. “No, no. Save your fists. Not like I’m there to reap the benefits right now anyway.”

Matt swallows down the automatic “I’m sorry” rising to his lips before it can reach her ears. It’s good to be reminded: Claire was elbow-deep in the blood and guts of the city before they ever met. She knows it as viscerally as he does, always has; maybe even better. It's easier to break something than to hold it together.

Claire sets her mug down on the coffee table with a _clink_. “You gonna tell me where the rest of those blind lawyer’s injuries are, or am I going to have to go on a scavenger hunt?”

Laughing a little, Matt says, “I’m starting to think you have too much time on your hands.”

“Listen to that. The lawyer thinks I’m an ambulance chaser.”

“Wallet’s on the counter, but I have to warn you, odds are good the credit card’ll be declined.” He's already sliding over, closing the space left between them. He backed away from her touch once tonight, but with her heat radiating into his skin, and that laugh in her voice, and the scent of her skin and her hair filling his nose and dancing on his tongue -

Who is he kidding. He's never been strong.

With one foot propped on the table, Matt pushes up the right leg of his sweatpants. The bruise he'd had to let the dirtbag give him pulses warmly, while the surrounding skin chills slightly in the cool air of the room. He'd knocked into the guy and started yelling about his wallet the minute he'd recognized the voice on the street - it was too good an opportunity to pass up - and gotten plenty of his own hits in early on. But as the bystanders accumulated and the spectacle got bigger, he'd lain on the sidewalk and let himself get kicked until the cops separated them. “Already iced it. Nothing left to do,” he says.

Claire’s silent, taking it in. He wonders just how ugly it is, what colors it's turned. “Let’s see the rest,” she says eventually. 

There's another bruise on his side, just over his hip. Matt hikes up his shirt enough to bare it, and this time she's the one to move closer. She spreads her hands and settles them lightly on his skin, bracketing the injury. “You know I can see the outline of his shoe.”

Matt shrugs. He can feel her heartbeat through her fingertips, pulsing into his skin. It's growing quicker, lighter, distracting, taking him back to a time when the lines between them had been more blurred. He still remembers the perfect shape of her lips.

Trying to trace it now based on memory and the soft flow of air as she breathes is a kind of torture, but is it any worse than trying to imagine what thoughts are in her head, or expression is on her face?

Softly, Claire touches him just above his bruised eye, stroking warm fingers down over his temple. Matt feels something building in his throat and bites it back. It's frustration, it's….

He's drinking every second of this in, and he can't stop. He can't _stop_. Worse, he's greedy for even more; her touch is soothing, it’s healing, but it could -

 _He_ could - 

But that's a line they definitely shouldn't cross. He's been telling himself that from the beginning. It’s easier to listen when she's telling him the same thing, but tonight… he doesn't know what he's hearing tonight.

“Anything else?” Claire asks, hands falling away. Matt swallows and shakes his head, and she says, “Right. So if I were to say I saw blood seeping through the back of your shirt, I'd be the one lying?”

“It's handled.”

Her silence is eloquent. Matt pulls his shirt up over his head shows her his back.

Deft fingers loosen the tape holding down the gauze high between his shoulder blades. He must have bled through at the center. Claire says, “So he had a knife.”

“For a minute. Yeah. Then I took it.”

“Mm.” Her fingers are hovering in the air above the cut, stirring up cool, fluttery currents of air. “And you couldn't reach the whole wound when you decided to to stitch yourself up, so you just left the middle gaping.”

“I was supposed to, what. Call you? A two inch cut counts as me really needing you? I’m just saying, Claire. You’re gonna have to give me a chart if you want me to keep up.”

She closes her hand over his shoulder and squeezes. “Like I said. Watch it.”

Her voice is easy, light, unfazed by his tone. Her hand doesn't move. It stays in place, warm and sure, tethering them together. A steady reminder: Claire's here because she wants to be here. She walks when she wants to walk.

Remembering that, respecting that - it's such a little thing that she's asking of him. Tiny, compared to all that he's asked of her.

When Claire gives his shoulder another squeeze, Matt realizes how tense he’s gotten, and how visible it must be. “Hey,” she says. “You watching it?” 

“Trying.” Matt wets his lips. “If. If you really want to make me? There’s - you could try the top drawer by my bed.”

Because he's not sure he can do it alone. What's burning in his chest and rising in his throat doesn't want to be stifled, not by him, not without help. Fighting’s easy, but when it’s against himself, the odds aren’t always great.

Claire throws up her hands, but the uptick in her heartbeat feels more like curiosity than exasperation. “Damn it, I had to mention scavenger hunts.”

The patter of her footsteps. The creak of the drawer. The catch of her breath as she looks inside. Matt’s pushing it, but it's not like that's anything new. And it's better than the ways he’s been pushing all night. Like this, if she wants to - only if she wants to - she can help him _stop_.

Rustling as Claire reaches into the drawer. Paper in her left hand. Cloth in her right. “Not sure what I’m looking for here, Matt,” she says. 

He's over that line he said he wasn’t going to cross, way over, and she's - he doesn't know. Maybe she's there with him. Maybe she isn't. Matt has to swallow before he can speak, and raise his voice so he can be heard in the bedroom. “Whatever you want. If you want any of it. Whatever’s right.”

The Braille New Testament was a gift from the nuns. The silk gag was a gift from Elektra. Claire’s still holding them both when she walks back into the living room.

“Handing you a Bible feels like a terrible idea,” she says. “You’d just get all -” she waves it at him - “ _martyr-y_ , and end up with more injuries for us to argue about.”

“Yeah... that could happen.”

“ _Would_ happen.”

A grin’s breaking out on his face. Matt can feel it. It gets even wider when Claire sighs and says, “Shit. Now I really want to know what you look like in this thing. Since it’s obviously not a blindfold.”

“Not a blindfold,” Matt confirms. He rubs his fingertips against his sweatpants. “You never know. You might like it.” 

She snorts. “Yeah, and I’m guessing you definitely would.”

Matt’s already imagining the warmth and scent that’s been soaking into the silk from her hands. Imagining it on his tongue, pressed between his teeth.

‘You want to finish your tea first?” He shakes his head with an eagerness that’s embarrassing. “All right,” Claire says, perching on the edge of the coffee table in front of him. “Here goes.”

She cards her fingers through his hair first, rubs beneath his jaw in that way that always unfurls something warm and pleased inside his chest. “Open up,” she says, and Matt does so at once - again, embarrassing - and she tucks the gently warmed silk between his teeth. When she reaches behind his head to tie the knot, he breathes in deep, nose an inch from her neck. It’s perfect.

Claire draws back. She must like what she sees; he senses her satisfied nod. “Nice,” she says. “Be right back.”

Her footsteps are relegated to the edge of his perception; all he can focus on is the weight and taste on his tongue. The choices are all hers, now, for the rest of the time that's she's here. He wonders if that feels good to her. Knows exactly how good it feels to him.

Matt sighs. His lips curve when it dies in his throat, stifled before it ever meets the air.

When Claire returns, she has his first aid kit in hand. The harsh antiseptic smell that accompanies her grows stronger as she opens the lid, and stronger still when she pours some on a cottonball. “It's too late for me to stitch this up, but I can damn well keep it from getting infected,” she says, right before the cold sting hits his back. 

Matt grunts into the gag. Cleaning the cut, medicating it, taping down fresh gauze pads - he’s been doing all of that and doing it well, thank you. Claire’s quick, though, more efficient than he’ll ever be, and it’s not long before she's stripping off her nitrile gloves. “This really _is_ nice. You're conscious, but there's no back talk. Kind of thing a girl could get used to.”

With a hand on his upper arm, Claire turns him towards her. She's looking him over, he thinks. Her heartbeat’s quick. Her hand is warm, and she lifts it to his face. “You should know,” she says, running a finger over the silk of the gag, “your mouth is incredibly pretty when you can't use it.”

No need to worry about the whimper building in his throat: the gag takes care of it. Matt lifts his own hand, and when Claire nods and says, “Yeah,” he cups it to her cheek, thumb nestling in the corner of her lips.

“Use your hands if you want,” Claire says softly. “I bet you like keeping them busy.”

Immediately, Matt takes that permission to heart, relearning the perfect curve of her lips with his thumb. It’s good, so, so good, but it's not enough. He's aching to use his lips - the pads of his fingers may be more sensitive than most, but they have nothing on his mouth. If he could kiss her, he could drown.

Of course, he'd have to deserve it first.

But she wants his hands. Her skin is warming under his touch, her blood is beating faster. And the thought that she trusts his hands - that knowing all she knows about what they've seen and what they've done, she can welcome them without flinching - hits Matt hard. 

He breathes through it. It's for the best that he can't say anything. It's for the best that she's taken care of his mouth. It gives him time to remember: what she trusts and what she wants are all up to her.

Matt’s using both hands, now. Cupping her neck, feeling her pulse throb against his palms. Claire’s using hers too, skating over his shoulders, down his chest, pressing warm against his stomach. She’s wearing more clothes than he is, which hardly seems fair, and even though Matt doubts he deserves _fair_ , his hands slip down to toy with the scooped neckline of her sweater, fingertips running along the edge.

Claire returns the favor. She palms his unbruised hip, squeezing firmly, fingers curling beneath his waistband. Matt inhales sharply through his nose. It sounds like the desperate bid for air that it is, and that's _before_ Claire rises up onto her knees and swings a leg over to straddle his thighs.

Breathe. Breathe. Matt clutches at her waist as he curls forward, forehead falling against her neck. The sudden press of her thighs to his makes for a shockingly sweet weight, mirrored by the weight of the gag on his tongue. He's pinned, and it feels good.

Easing his head up off her shoulder, Claire holds him in place with a finger under his chin. She's sighted, and he's wearing sweatpants; there's no question about it, she has to know about the blood pulsing in his dick. The way it's thickening, swelling. 

Claire's fingers skim Matt's chest, gently catching against his nipples as they travel down. If she’s looking for a reaction, Matt's body rewards her; he jolts hard, panting against the cloth in his mouth.

“I said you could use your hands,” she reminds him, and he tugs jerkily on her sweater until she takes pity on him and lifts it over her head. Her skin is so much softer than the fabric, so much _better_ , and Matt’s eager to learn every inch of it, tracing down her side to the curve of her hips and back up again, hands coming to rest over her ribs, just beneath her breasts.

And her hands are busy, too. They settle low on his stomach, palms weighing heavy just below the waist of his sweats, fingers spreading wide over his belly. Matt's dick twitches. His fingers tighten against her skin.

“You can't tell me what you want,” Claire says, “so I'll have to guess…. You want my hands lower?” She suits action to words, but by only an inch - just enough to wring a groan from Matt's throat that the silk gag barely stifles. “You want my bra off?” _Yes_ , but does she mean for him to choose between the two? She might, there's a tease in her voice, a suggestion that Claire’s a little fond of power. She puts her mouth to his ear, and the soft flow of her breath makes him shiver before she even speaks. “Or maybe you don't care what I do as long as I do _something_.”

There it is. The gag isn't enough to contain the noise he makes this time, and Matt feels his face go hot.

Claire laughs, low and deep. She hitches forward, settling warm and heavy over his dick, chest pressing against his chest. She's softness, she's heat, she's everything, and his greedy skin drinks her in. 

When Matt slides his hands up, cupping her breasts through the satin of her bra, Claire laughs again. “Oh, now you have an opinion?”

He nods, shameless, desperate to feel the full weight of them in his hands, to feel her heat bleed into his palms. But that's a mistake; she hums, says, “So do I,” and stands up, leaving Matt with only air.

It's like a bucket of cold water. But soon Matt realizes what she's doing - hears the teeth of her zipper, hears the thud as her jeans hit the floor - and he's not cold in the slightest, he’s _burning up_ by the time she straddles him again, this time in her underwear.

Claire palms his dick, and Matt chokes, a harsh, pathetic sound. He swells longer and harder while she strokes him through his clothes, lining him up just so before she rocks forward and presses him exactly where she wants him. “Gonna show me you know what to do with this?” she asks, and Matt nods wildly, head knocking against her temple as he thrusts his hips up, stealing all the heat and friction he can get.

He’s leaking in his boxers and it’s going to soak through his sweats any minute now. She’s wet too, she smells like a dream, and it’s killing Matt that he can’t taste her, not even in the air. He swallows, and tastes damp silk.

She moves slowly, rocking against him like they have all the time in the world. Matt’s fingers feel fat and uncoordinated, but he finally manages the clasp on the back of her bra, and when her nipples first brush his skin he shivers all the way down his spine. As Claire’s body arches into his, he noses down her chest, breathing in as deeply as he can, learning her by scent, while his fingers touch and touch and his mouth works against the gag.

It's not enough. None of it’s enough. Except it's also far too much, and Matt feels himself fraying at the edges, spiraling out of control. He’s whining deep in his throat, twisting his head, trying to drag the corner of his mouth along Claire's neck, desperate to taste her some way - any way he can - desperate to _feel_. The rest of his body is awash with sensation, but his lips are a desert; they’ve been deprived of so much for so long that it hurts. 

One thing’s for sure. Matt’s not going to last. 

“Listen to you,” Claire says, hips rolling leisurely over his dick. “You can sit there without making a sound whenever I stitch you up -” another long, slow roll - “but I can gag you and you still can't keep your damn mouth shut when I've got you feeling good. How about that.”

Listen to him. Listen to him. High, needy noises, slipping out around the silk, trembling on the verge of sobs. Breath rasping in his chest, fractured, broken, panting. Blood pounding in his veins.

His stifled, stuttered groan when it's all suddenly too much and he can't - he _can't_ -

Claire’s fingers card through his hair, gentling him as he comes, while his chest heaves and his body jerks and his sweatpants get _wrecked_. They linger on the knot of the gag, pressed against the base of Matt’s skull; Matt forestalls the silent question by covering her hand with his.

His choice, now, and he’s got to be ready. He's going to kiss her - dear Lord, is he going to kiss her - but he's also going to listen. To what her body says, breath and blood and quiet shifts of muscle; more than that, to every word.

He's going to listen to _her_.

Maybe she'd like him on his back with her thighs framing his face. Maybe she'd like his mouth completely at her service. Maybe. Maybe. 

He definitely would.

Matt drops his hand and bows his head to give her better access to the knot, and when she unties it, doesn't make a sound.

Lets Claire have her say.

**Author's Note:**

> Always at [tumblr](http://significantowl.tumblr.com)! <3


End file.
